American Sirens is about Freedom House, a Black ambulance service from Pittsburgh that set worldwide Emergency Medical Services (EMS) standards and revolutionized pre-hospital care. It also describes Freedom House’s eventual collapse in the face of overwhelming racism.
…to the south we had a scene of savage magnificence, well becoming Tierra del Fuego. There was a degree of mysterious grandeur in mountain behind mountain, with the deep intervening valleys, all covered by one thick, dusky mass of forest. The atmosphere, likewise, in this climate, where gale succeeds gale, with rain, hail, and sleet, seems blacker than anywhere else. In the Straight of Magellan, looking due southward from Port Famine, the distant channels between the mountains appeared in their gloominess to lead beyond the confines of this world.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a story about Henrietta Lacks and the cancer cells that killed her and afterward, revolutionized science. It is about the Lacks family and how the decades without proper recognition contributed to their disadvanteged social position. And to a lesser extent, it is also about medical ethics and racial inequality.
Whatever your stage of life, it won’t hurt to pay attention to money, the ways to preserve it, and the ways to make it grow.
It will be even more useful if you start early, but not everyone has this liberty. In any case, here are my picks for the 5 Best Books about Finance.
Here are my picks for the 9 best books about medicine, diet, and health. The novels have entertained me, and the non-fiction has improved my understanding of the world.
If you’re not sure what to read next, I recommend you pick up one of these.
Drunk describes the effects alcohol has had on human civilisation. It covers the physiological, mental, psychologic/creative, and communal effects of alcohol, as well as its negative aspects. Slingerland keeps one foot in the scientific fields but his text is more for the general public.
This is the second of three articles covering some of the differences I’ve noticed after three years living in France.
What I’ve listed below are slightly more profound (and less immediately evident) differences than those mentioned in my first article: Culture Shock! 19 Observations from Living in France
This is the first of three articles covering some of the differences I’ve noticed after three years living in France. What I’ve listed below are some of the most obvious differences though they are far from the most significant.
Henrich argues that it was first the Catholic Church’s strange practices of reducing the power of extended kin-groups in Europe and then various other protestanty-based ideals which further changed the social psychology of Europeans. And then how the habits of European social psychology bore fruit by encouraging higher rates of education, technological advancement, sharing with strangers, and trust in non-related others.